Cyndi Burnett:
Hello and welcome to the Fueling Creativity and Education podcast.

Matthew Worwood:
It’s summer break here in the US and that means it’s time for another Listen and Learn series.

Cyndi Burnett:
And this series features bite sized episodes designed to support some professional development during the holidays.

Matthew Worwood:
Now, as scholar practitioners, Cindy and I do see the summer as a chance to recharge and catch up on new ideas and research.

Cyndi Burnett:
So Matt and I put together a list and we reached out to some of our past guests who have recently published books and invited them back to talk briefly about their latest work.

Matthew Worwood:
And if you’re a regular listener to the show and listened to one of our Listen and Learn series before, you’ll know that these off season episodes are short and focused. We asked just three questions about their new book, providing a perfect way to stay inspired while still making time for at rest and family.

Cyndi Burnett:
So whether you’re a new or regular listener, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and enjoy this special summer edition of Fueling Creativity and Education.

Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin. Today’s episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast is a special one. As part of our summer Listen and Learn series, we are spotlighting authors whose books can inspire your summer reading list. Cindy had an idea to bring in a children’s book author, so whether you’re a parent or an educator, you’ll come away with fresh ideas to nurture creativity in the kids around you, both at home and in the classroom.

Cyndi Burnett:
Today, I am thrilled to welcome my dear friend and creative collaborator to the show, Barney Sultzberg. Barney is a world renowned children’s book author, illustrator and songwriter, known for his playful, heartfelt stories that celebrate creativity, resilience and imagination. With over 50 books to his name, including Beautiful Oops and Crazy Hair Day, his work encourages children to embrace mistakes as part of the creative process. Barney and I actually have a YouTube station called Creativity where we have over 40 creative thinking challenges for students. So if you want to check that out, check it out in the show notes below. Barney has just published two new children’s books. Congratulations. The first is called Just a Banana and the second is called Rabbit’s Feet.

Cyndi Burnett:
So Barney, welcome to the show.

Barney Saltzberg:
Nice to be here. Nice to be here.

Matthew Worwood:
Okay, so Barney, let’s start off with Just a Banana. Give us a 45 second pitch of that book.

Barney Saltzberg:
Well, I shouldn’t have had coffee. I should talk a lot slower because it won’t take that long. It is a Lift the Flap book which reveals surprise interpretations of a banana. Once you’ve lifted the flap and it really did it in a playful mode moment, not really thinking it was going to be a book. That’s not a good pitch if I was trying to sell this. But I find that it’s silly and playful, and I think it models just playing and being creative and. And on the. The simplest level.

Matthew Worwood:
And. And to that point, we follow up then. What is the one creativity concept that you hope this book will teach others?

Barney Saltzberg:
Well, is play considered a play? A creativity. Yeah, yeah, I would say play, yeah. I mean, I’m really hoping that. That a parent might start looking at things with a kid or the kid might just on its own, from being inspired by the book, start seeing how that shape might be something else. And it really gives you an opportunity to see differently, which is something that Cindy and I have worked on our channel. So that’s what I would hope.

Cyndi Burnett:
So, Barney, because this is going to be on YouTube. And for those of you listening, you might want to go to YouTube and check out this video. Can you show us one of the pictures of how the just a banana turns into something else?

Barney Saltzberg:
Sure. So here’s the COVID of the book, and it’s a little glossy, so I hope you can see it. All right. And just. Just the opening of the book, it says, this is a banana, which is rather simple. And then the flat says, or is it? And so each page takes on the same shot, but I got to kind of go crazy with what I could do with it.

Matthew Worwood:
And so what we’re seeing is, yeah, we’re seeing lots of different variations of the banana from. From it being a smile to it being, you know, walking banana that almost looked like a puppy, put some legs on it. Or it could even be like a bicycle if you put some wheels on it. And I think, absolutely. Going back to that concept, that creativity concept, there’s probably a whole bunch of different creative thinking skills, for example, that this would relate to. But I think just, it’s very simple. Level many people listening to the show that kind of are familiar with Equal Torrence or just, you know, promoting divergent thinking. We quite often talk about, come up with all the different uses of a brick, or we find an everyday object and encourage people to look at that object and see it in a different way compared to the way it was either designed or we typically use it.

Matthew Worwood:
And I think, in essence, this book is practicing that entire activity. Right. Like you take a banana and you’re able to come up with all the different ways you can use or see a banana in the world.

Barney Saltzberg:
Absolutely. I like that. You Said a bunch of ideas, and it’s kind of a banana joke. But the. The irony of this book is beautiful. Oops had come out and done well, and it continues to. And I was thinking of a sequel idea, and I thought of Oopses as personal oopses. Mistakes where you spill and tear paper and things like that.

Barney Saltzberg:
And then I came up with an idea called Imagine Art. And it was finding art in cracks in the sidewalk, peeled paint, things like that. And when I was working on it, I just. For some reason, I said, don’t forget to play. And I had an accordion pull out where I drew on photographs of bananas. And because of paper construction and the cost of putting together an interactive book, the publisher said, this book’s too expensive, but why don’t we just do a banana book? So I did not even think of this as a book on its own. Right. In its own right.

Barney Saltzberg:
But. And then I was a little skeptical until I went to a kindergarten and read it, and I thought, oh, these are my people.

Matthew Worwood:
But you see, what I love about it, though, is if I’m a teacher, I can. I can make it interactive after the book. I mean, in essence, it. It’s like the book is part of a larger activity. It sets up the activity in a really fun way. But then as a teacher and educator, in essence, you could kind of practice the type of creative thinking that you’re expressing in the book in probably lots of different ways, using lots of different objects in the classroom. So I think that’s what’s special about it. And I know, Cindy, that’s one of the reasons why you thought it was so important that we kind of introduced this particular book on the Summer Summer Listen and Learn series, which I think was just an absolutely brilliant idea, because it’s about practice.

Barney Saltzberg:
Yeah. And I think just to add to that, as someone who had a lot of learning challenges, myself in school, giving an assignment, a project to a class that doesn’t have a wrong answer. Anything you do is perfect. So I think that’s really liberating for a lot of kids to know that you’re not expecting me to come up with a given answer that I don’t know about yet until I discover it. This is an opportunity for me to come up with whatever I want. And I think for a lot of kids who are feeling pressure in a classroom, it’s really liberating to be able to play that way. I hope.

Cyndi Burnett:
All right, Barney, there’s another book you’ve just come out with called Rabbit’s Feet, and it’s not Feet F E E T. It’s Feet F E A T. Which I know you’ve been working on for it seems like several years. So tell us about that book. Give us a 45 second pitch of that book or a 43 second whatever you’d like.

Barney Saltzberg:
You know, I pretty much can go through the list of books I’ve written and talk about what the inspiration was. This is one I can’t. I don’t know where it came from and I do know that it evolved. I always say that this is kind of like Waiting for Godot for Children. I met this amazing paper artist, Rebecca Yosef, in Santa Monica and I went to her studio and photographed some of her handmade paper. And this, this piece with the crease in it was one of her pieces of paper on the floor of her studio. I, in Photoshop was able to add a little bit of granite texture to it. So it took on another, another feeling.

Barney Saltzberg:
And the cactus here is burlap. That said, I was playing with this sort of impossibility of a cactus and a boulder who wanted to be closer to each other physically. And I don’t know where that came from. I mean, probably do some time in a therapist’s office, but I realized that this dream of a, of a boulder wanted to be closer to a cactus was pretty impossible. And I kind of added a rabbit just as a character that would be in the desert. And it became integral to the story. And I still didn’t know how this rabbit was going to have this impossible feat accomplished. And I added a butterfly as a visual cue, something I like to do as an illustrator, where you would just sort of follow the butterfly.

Barney Saltzberg:
And after working on this, as you said, for years, just as a visual, the butterfly became integral into the story. And I did not know that. So a lot of this came from my unconscious. But the shorter pitch is it’s a book about doing the right thing for the right reasons why, without worrying about getting any credit for helping. And I feel like at this moment in time on the planet, it’s a message we sorely need because I feel like so many deeds at this point are motivated by lots of things and not necessarily doing the right thing. And I, and I really love the simplicity of that message. And that’s really what this book is about. It’s, it’s, it’s helping and doing a selfless deed.

Matthew Worwood:
Well, it sounds very connected to transformational creativity, which is something that we talk a lot about on the show and something that Cindy and I have recently really started, I think, to advocate for as we’re cultivating creative thinking and creativity in our students, to kind of get them to keep thinking about how their ideas can go on and improve a community and ultimately take that step to better the world. So if you’ve enjoyed this Summer Listen and Learn series, just remember that we do have a link to this book and other books that we’ve covered on the series on our website, and you can check out that webpage@foldingcreativitypodcast.com summerreading2025 and.

Cyndi Burnett:
If you love this super quick highlight with Barney Seltzberg, stay tuned for season 11 of the podcast when we do a full interview with Glen on nurturing creativity in children and the power of turning our mistakes into something beautiful. My name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
And my name is Dr. Matthew Woad.

Cyndi Burnett:
This episode was made possible thanks to our sponsor, Curiosity to.